


Scary Side

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Approval Seeking, Brief references to rape, Canon Compliant, Canon Dialogue, Episode: s09e06 In the Blood, Garcia just wants everyone to like her, Gen, Halloween, Hurt feelings, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Not nearly canon typical violence, References to Homicide, Reid is too hard on himself, Reid's scary Side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27098536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: When Garcia tells Reid she wants to see his 'scary side', he has to think fast to come up with something to reveal that isn't so... well... scary.
Kudos: 39





	Scary Side

Spencer had meant well. Honestly. He had told Garcia what she so clearly needed to hear to feel better. That she did indeed have a scary side. That everyone does. And even though he couldn't quite see it on her, he knew within reason that it was surely true.

All he was doing was reassuring her that she was near enough to normal. Calming her secret, yet very obvious, fear that she wasn't and never had been. Counter acting the well intentioned words of a much more thoroughly normal friend who didn't get what it was like to have that worry constantly nagging at the back of your mind. Relieving the anxiety caused by what J.J. had probably meant as a compliment.

But words like 'everyone' are sharp at both ends and ought to be used very carefully. “Okay,” Garcia replied. “I want to see it. I want to see Dr. Spencer Reid's hidden personality.”

For several panicked seconds, Spencer was speechless. It would be easier if she had said it skeptically, even mockingly, the way Morgan or J.J. might have. But no. Garcia spoke with the innocent excitement of a child asking for another magic trick. She meant it. Or thought she did.

“Uh... Wh... Like... right here? Right now, y-you want to see it?” He stammered through the old 'restating the question' stall most people used at school or at work but which he had only ever needed in social situations.

What could he do? Penelope Garcia, was a cinnamon roll. Good all the way through. Her scariest side was probably the one that had jacked up the computer networks of those cosmetic companies to save the lives of innocent, fluffy bunnies; which was what had gotten her on the FBI's radar in the first place.

She didn't want to know the Spencer Reid who stole opiates out of the pocket of a man he'd killed five minutes earlier, going back and kneeling over the body on the pretext that he was saying goodbye. Paying his last respects to a man who, in point of fact, in spite of all the madness and pain that made up their brief acquaintance, had also saved his life. Not showing any respect at all. Filled with the same kind of ineffectual remorse that made unsubs try undoing what could never be undone.

She didn't want to know the guy who had brought the men in white coats to drag his terrified, heartbroken mother out of her home kicking and screaming so that he could get on with his life and be the teenager for once instead of the parent. Or the maniac who had accused his father of raping and murdering a six year old boy because he couldn't deal honestly with his own feelings of rejection and abandonment.

She didn't know what she was asking. But she was asking. Insisting, even. “I have fake blood running down my cheeks. Right here right now.” An outright refusal would have hurt her feelings even more than his failure to be 'scared' by the fake blood running from her eyes in the first place.

He stalled a little more, batting a few words back and forth, trying to think. _She didn't know what she was asking._ That was the answer. He put his head down and his hands behind his neck, hiding his relieved smile. Grunting theatrically as he made a show of preparing himself. Of getting into character.

It was an exercise, or best treated as one anyway. Like when a camp counselor or an R.A. asks you to 'share your most embarrassing moment' with the the group as an 'icebreaker'. They didn't want to know about the times you were stripped naked and ridiculed in front of hundreds of people. You were supposed to say something funny and mildly self-deprecating, preferably something you made up.

This was the same, except for the funny part. What was wanted was drama. Intensity. Just not too much of either. Nothing truly scary.

He did an impression of Clint Eastwood's 'Dirty Harry' that he'd originally learned to try and impress his father twenty years earlier. It hadn't worked, but his mom had loved it and had him do it for his uncle and all the rest of the Family at Christmas. Of course, he still remembered the dialog perfectly. And his performance was not bad if he did say so himself.

For some reason, Garcia didn't seem relieved. She seemed annoyed. Should he have gone scarier to prove the original 'everybody has a scary side' thesis instead of trying for 'see, I'm not scary either'? Maybe this was one of those conversations where you just couldn't actually win.

Spencer caught himself reaching to scratch the inside of his left elbow with his other hand, but stopped himself. The itching was psychosomatic. He knew that. The faint, tiny scars beneath his sleeve didn't itch because he'd once stuck a number of fairly sharp needles in them.

They itched because they reminded him of things he'd seen and done and felt. Things he hadn't done but might have, and under the right circumstances still might. A side of himself so scary he couldn't risk anyone seeing it and not being able to unsee it. Least of all Penelope Garcia.


End file.
